The document discusses an experiment by the author to increase views on their Medium articles by optimizing headlines based on statistical data. Some key findings from analyzing millions of headlines include that phrases like "This will make you..." and "This is why..." perform well. The author plans to incorporate these phrases into headlines while still reflecting the article content. They will track views and read ratios to see if this strategy increases engagement. The author typically gets around 50 views per article and aims to improve that through their experiment.

2. Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay
STATS
Medium Experiment: This Will Make
You Gain More Views
Making use of statistics to bump up my views
Lorenz Duremdes, Polymath
Dec 5 · 5 min read
“Jerzy Neyman conceived the role of statistics as
providing direct guidance about an optimal
decision.” — Herbert I. Weisberg, Willful
Ignorance: The Mismeasure of Uncertainty
o far, I have been writing for fun. I didn’t try my hardest to craft the
best headlines so people will click on them. I simply did what I
thought would look good and representative of the content of my articles.
This month, however, I am planning of making more use of what statistics
say to get more views and hopefully also a higher read ratio.
S

3. So first of all, what does statistics say?
Most Engaging Headline Phrases:The Data
We Analyzed 100 Million Headlines. Here's What We
Learned (New Research) | BuzzSumo
It is di cult to overstate the importance of headlines. A
good headline can entice and engage your audience to…
buzzsumo.com
Although their research mostly revolves around Facebook and also a little
bit on Twitter and LinkedIn, I am still curious whether they would apply on
Medium.
According to their data, the most engaging headline phrases in terms of
Facebook likes, shares, and comments contains words such as: “…will make
you…”
Or:
“…This is why…”

4. Their reasoning is that these phrases connects the “content” with “the
potential impact on the reader”.
So what am I going to try in my little experiment? Create as many headlines
as possible containing these words.
The headlines still have to reflect the articles however, so I am not afraid to
make exceptions.
I am absolutely not trying to clickbait people, I simply want to make more
use of statistics:
THIS IS WHY the media writes headlines like that. It’s not because they’re
trying to be click-baity or trying to exaggerate — it’s because that’s literally
what people like to click on.
You have no one to blame but yourself.
Source: We Analyzed 100 Million Headlines. Here’s What We Learned (New
Research) on Reddit
Headline AnalyzerTool
I am also planning to use this headline analyzer tool for those interested:

5. Write Better Headlines: Headline Analyzer From
CoSchedule - @CoSchedule
The Headline Analyzer that will score your overall headline
quality and rate its ability to result in social shares…
coschedule.com
Views and Read Ratio
So the other obvious thing I will have to keep track on, are the views and
read ratio of each article. Whether making use of better headlines results in
more views or not doesn’t matter if my read ratio drops. If that happens to
be the case, however, I might have to make better content and write my
articles more elegantly.
Currently, I am averaging 50 views per article. The “bad” ones have
approximately 30 views with a ~25% read ratio while the good ones are
more like 70 views with ~50% read ratio (Yes, without getting curated).
My Top 3 Best Responses + Stats of November 2019
Sharing my stats and best responses based on subjective
quality
medium.com

6. I do indeed have some articles with a couple of hundred views, which
would give me an average of 266 views per article, but I am cutting them
out because I mostly got those views by promoting these articles elsewhere
outside Medium. These promotions don’t always tend to be that successful,
so we are “cutting the edges” so to speak.
What Makes an Article Popular on Medium?
What makes an article popular on Medium? We
analyzed 10,000+ data points to nd out
Over the last few years Medium has quickly turned into my
favorite place to publish and read. It’s a democratic haven…
medium.com
I will also try to make use of the data from this article. Simply said, these are
the key points I will follow:
1. Write for “middle schoolers”
2. Sentences averaging 12–15 words seem to be the most effective
3. Not using too complicated words and sentences
4. Creating headlines containing power words such as “Top” or “Best”

7. 5. Using sentence case for articles related to “life lessons” and title case for
more “serious” and scientific articles
6. Call-to-action via MailChimp
My Own PersonalTake onThese Key Points
I definitely agree with most of them, although point number 1 can sound
somewhat denigrating. I think a combination of both “expert talk” and
“ELI5 talk” is the most effective. Here’s an example of mine:
A simple example of an “item” is learning a foreign word. A more complex
example would be memorizing the definition of concepts such as
mitochondria (yes I know that’s a meme).
Jigsaw analogy*: each “item” represents an individual puzzle piece. Some
which may or may not look more complex than others.
Source: Blocked Periodization: A New Method To Enhance Learning
You can see how I start with something complex and abstract, while
simplifying the things through an analogy or metaphor.

8. “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand
it well enough.” — Albert Einstein
In fact, my role model John von Neumann has perfectly mastered that
technique:
John Von Neumann Interview on YouTube
John Von Neumann InterviewJohn Von Neumann Interview

9. “Von Neumann would carry on a conversation with my 3-year-old son, and the
two of them would talk as equals, and I sometimes wondered if he used the
same principle when he talked to the rest of us.” — Edward Teller
And of course you have to other extreme end of the spectrum (not to be
taken seriously):
“The work’s central thesis is that reality is a self-processing, self-referential
language, embodying a dual aspect monism and consisting of
“infocognition”, or information that resides in “syntactic operators” within
reality.” — Christopher Langan
Medium Experiment WithThe Worst Headlines
To top it of, I am also planning to use “the worst headlines” according to the
data by BuzzSumo. Phrases such as:
“…control of your…”
And:
“…the introduction of…”
Seem to perform the worst, at least on Facebook.

10. Again, if my views go down but my read ratio doesn’t, my content may be of
high value but it’s all about making the right headlines, then.
For those interested, these were my stats as of October 2019:
My Top 5 Best Medium Responses of October
Why I think our educational system needs to focus more on
quality than quantity, “Why am I, I?” and more…
medium.com
. . .
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See this to see why I write:
https://lorenzduremdes.wordpress.com/2019/10/08/introd…
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